Often Enough
by BehrBeMine
Summary: He doesn't think about her often enough.


Title: Often Enough  
Author: BehrBeMine  
Feedback: I wish I was witty. Gimme.  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't sue, I'll cry. ;p  
Summary: He doesn't think about her often enough.  
Pairing: Logan/Rory  
Rating: PG-13  
Distribution: Take. Tell me. I'll visit and possibly move in.  
Author's Note: To my wonderful fans, who are wondering, another pairing, dear God, does this girl have any direction? I am here to offer you a simple answer: no.  
Dedication: To Crystal, my girl, on her birthday. I love you!

- -  
He doesn't think about her often enough.

The plane has landed, and he is alone, through with layover after layover. One, standing stationary with a briefcase that doesn't fit his fingers, not even the handle he clasps; one, among many, standing still, as they are all moving. He doesn't know why he feels so alone.

London could be beautiful if he was really looking. He hails a cab on the wrong side of the street. It's yellow as a bee with a black stripe slashed through the doors, thick, not like blood but like a tree trunk, only not so much. He thinks it's confusing the way his thoughts are, and tries to shut them off. It seems so much has been shut off. Not just lately, but maybe longer.

Maybe always.

There is rain that drizzles down to wet his hair as he ignores the umbrella held down at his side, firm in the grip of his ice blue veined hand. Hair so much darker than _hers_ sticks to his skull and his forehead, pasted there hastily by God's tears. He doesn't call them that. No one calls them that. No one he knows. His hair is ever so much lighter than hers... But really, he isn't thinking about her.

He isn't thinking about the way her hair smelled after being smashed through the straightener, faintly burned. The way it felt: crisp, like a fresh waffle. He never knew why she used a straightener when she had straight hair, but she used it the day she found out about what caused a rift in her love for him. He wasn't thinking about her then, he swears. No, not when he was blindly kissing the necks and the breasts of those bridesmaid "female friends" of his, calling them beautiful as if it were a pet name. If pet names were things tossed around with no affection, but rather mere thoughtlessness. He never thought of that singular her as he drove himself into those special female bodies that weren't so special after all, with a desperation to get rid of some feeling inside of him he didn't care to identify, this desperation bubbling up inside of him, making him pound their insides to liquid as some form of nonchalance, some unaimed malice.

He thought they were on a break, that they were over, he said, right to her face. He was Ross and she was Rachel, and it was so sickening that he knew the difference.

He can feel eyes on him as he musses his wet hair with his hand. Recycled rain splatters everywhere to land on paper displays, important faxes. The meeting wanes. He can see again her lips in that pout as she crossed her arms over her chest, determined not to have The Fight. He plunged on. She was mad at him -- she had to admit it! She had to admit it so it could be over! She was acting like she didn't love him anymore and what he was most afraid of was that he might care.

He never thinks about the blush in her cheeks the day that she sat forward on the couch, before they prepared to leave. "I love you," she told him, with no promise of a reciprocation. No assurance of one and no expectation. He liked it that way. Or at least he thought he did. "Wow," he said. Because that was what made girls swoon. That was what made moments like these memorable, what made them like roses to be pressed between pages of favorite verses in the bible. _Wow_.

Asked for his opinion, he glances up, feigning boredom to cover his distraction. Mitchum will have his head when news of this meeting gets back to headquarters, otherwise known as home. It's never been a home. A house does not a home make. What is it idiots say? _Home is where the heart is_.

He doesn't like to think about his heart. Then he might have to think of how he almost made it explode.

The first part of the memory he doesn't mind so much. Staggering drunkenly in formal wear, giggling at the ripped bowtie that matched the one hanging precariously around Finn's neck. Loving that accent that never failed to grow louder when drunk, which, truth to tell, was ninety percent of the time. Gulping beers like all-American dads, sipping martinis like wives of broken households. Swigging whiskey like old homeless men. Old homeless men in black and white penguin attire, scuffed shoes and matching bowties falling off the neck.

Slapping parachutes on his buddies' backs as they littered the countryside with their expensive vodka bottles and cheap crushed beer cans. Barely paying attention to his own safety equipment. Caring so much about hip-hop and chandeliers in that moment, and being ready to fly.

Then flying without a goodbye.

One meeting turns into two which turns into five, and eventually he actually is bored, though he can't get rid of thoughts that are tormenting him. _Bugging_ him, never leaving him alone. Chewing on him like gnats that haven't been fed (if indeed gnats are ever fed) in years. He doesn't want to be bothered. Doesn't want to think. Doesn't want to be here. Doesn't want to be dead, but wishes he never woke up in that hospital.

He soared for the longest time, even when it felt like his ribs were being crushed in, and his heart was deflating, his ears popping wide open, his eyes exploding. When all went black, he wasn't finished. The night wasn't over. He hadn't closed his briefcase, hadn't ended business yet with the sky.

He saw beer flowing, green olives on toothpicks, his mother's scathing glance. At _her_.

He saw her.

Fleeing with him from his own house, the place he'd grown up in, the place that wound never be his sanctuary. Leaving him to find solitude elsewhere. Leaving him still searching. "I don't understand," she said. And that said it all.

He saw her.

Working with him to somehow save the paper after Paris sunk the Titanic on top of it. The icebergs were melting due to the global warming Paris initiated with her personal hotplate, and ohh, the place was going down. But he saw how Rory turned to him in her moment of need, asking without words, without gestures, but in the language that lovers somehow find together and make up on their own. The sweat on her brow as he made last minute phone calls, the way she swept hair behind her ear in her haste to get her fingers on the computer keyboard. Setting the layout, perfecting it, re-doing it. Giving him the credit. Taking back what he would give her just because he gave it to her.

He saw...

The bag he bought her, glowing pink as the blush in her cheeks. Fresh with the new car smell.

His favorite tie. The one she kept choosing, the one he'd never wear. He still can't figure out why.

Her baby face, filled with admiration and respect, for him. Imagine that. Ace has respect. For him.

Curls, in her hair. Oh, how her hair curled... when she said, "I love you."

"You don't have to say anything at all," she said. And he didn't. He didn't want to.

He didn't want to.

It's been a week, shut up in this expensive hotel. He hates it. Hates the summer showers, the radiant sunlight, the feel of The Beatles everywhere. London is missing something. There's a name on his tongue that dies repeatedly as he sulks, all alone. There is no Colin here, no Finn. No getting together with the guys. No trash talking, no getting trashed. No trash in general, it seems. He is so. sick. of this.

There's a whole wall of glass, looking out on the city. It looks nothing like Hartford. Then again, nothing does. His plush velvet chair faces away from the wall of windows, and he bangs his head back, against the glass. He thinks of waking up in the hospital, and having trouble breathing. Having trouble breathing, like he is now.

All shut up, in this life, alone and miserable. Hurting for no good reason, ashamed. Without family, but what's new? Burdened by expectations, oh whine, whine. He's tired. He's lonely, and he's tired. He wants the hospital back. He wants to open his eyes again, after that lone black oblivion. He wants to open his eyes and see what he never thinks about enough...

Her.

He wants to see her walk in, angsty and concerned, her hair hastily blow-dried, her shirt tag sticking out. He wants to close his eyes and know safety by the feel of her warm lips on his brow.

He bangs his head against the glass again, hard. Hopes for a concussion.

Sees the elevator doors closing, and the tears streaming down her face. Her cheeks wet, her hair mussed. She wanted to come with him. She wanted to come. He doesn't think about her often enough...

Bang against the glass again. Lightning zig-zags in the distance, marring the charcoal, starless sky. He is a light bulb, clinking, turning on, his body aroused, his eyes open. Tear ducts ready. Pupils zeroed on the door.

He doesn't need another concussion. He doesn't need another blackout. He doesn't need to say hi to William and Harry for her. He doesn't need any of this shit. He doesn't need to be anyone he's ever expected to be. There's no reason for it. There's just no sense.

He's had enough. And he's decided. He knows what he wants now. He's been thoughtless and without emotion, driving without the steering wheel. Accelerating without a license. Killing himself.

He grabs his coat and in five seconds flat, he's out the door. He suddenly knows what he wants. It's not London. It's not a sure bet. It's not the future.

It's her. He's headed home, finally, to her.

- -  
end


End file.
